The Weight of Worth
by plutospawn
Summary: The morning was cold, but their bed was warm. A post-Trespasser exploration of the loss of the Anchor and a loss of one's identity. Rating primarily for language.


"Pig fucker!"

Thom Rainier didn't have to ask. The pressured insult that leapt from Aster Lavellan's lips varied, but the nightmare was always the same. In the past, he'd told her, "Such language is beneath you," and watched her frown turn into a wicked grin. "And you'd rather it was you beneath me?" she'd replied and they'd enjoyed the distraction such comments provided. The morning was cold; their bed was warm.

But now? Now, he just pulled her lithe frame against his chest. His arms squeezed down tighter, pressing out all the vitriol that spewed from her until there was nothing left.

"Knife-eared bastard! You took my arm, you won't take my vallaslin!" Aster's voice was indignant, and hoarse with rage. "I will die first! Do you hear me, you arrogant, condescending shit?"

"Enough, love," he murmured, tangles of her hair in his fingers. "Let it go."

She kissed him, then, long and hard enough to make his body ache for what was to come, but he crushed her back against his chest, instead. Thom knew he tried to be a better man due in no small part to the example she set, the stoic way she shouldered responsibility, but he had begun to realize that Aster herself had changed just as much as she had changed him. He recognized the tactics. The diversions, the little polite lies, assumptions, until she wore a mask of herself that appeared okay.

Aster Lavellan was not okay. What was to be done for the unwilling? For those who had greatness thrust upon them only for it to be violently ripped away? She had long insisted she was no herald, no chosen, no goddess. She hadn't needed to come face to face with an actual god to prove that she was right. The war, even the world would trudge forward without his maimed and damaged Inquisitor and depending on the day, Thom would damn or thank the lot of them for it. He pressed his lips against her forehead.

"The world changes every time we sleep," she muttered. Her breathing was becoming more regular, inconsistent with the angry beat of her heart. "If you'd open your eyes, pull yourself away from your precious dreams, you'd see us, not what your long dead dust and whispers think we should be."

"I see you," Thom said. "And you saw me when I couldn't bear to see myself. Don't dwell on him and his words. You are you, tattoos or no."

Aster pulled away and sat upright. "And Cassandra is her cheekbones and not her faith; Varric is defined by his chest hair not his wit!"

He could feel a spike of frenzied adrenaline warm his belly and he swallowed it back down. He knew from experience that he could scream louder, but Aster always had far more to say. Thom waited for calm to settle over his nerves before he spoke. "I'm grateful that his respect for you outweighed your ire for him," he said.

"He thinks I'm weak," she ground out. "He only let me go, because he thinks I'm powerless to stop him. He had the gall to just walk away and some days I think maybe..."

"I didn't say I cared what his reasoning was," Thom said. "He stopped that thing from killing you and allowed you to come home to me. That's all I needed."

And there it was. "Oh." Quiet, soft. An upward flutter of green eyes that met his and a tiny curve to the corner of her lips. A subtle thing, often missed by those unfamiliar with the feared Inquisitor, but he and a treasured few knew it well. It was good to know he was still capable of provoking such a response.

There, in the amber glow of daybreak, a long, tawny leg twisted in a blanket, a flicker of mirth. Slender fingers walked along his chest and he traced her sienna markings with an index finger from their start at the center of her forehead to where they swooped down to the hollow of her cheekbone. "It represents a god?" Thom asked.

"June."

"And that means?"

"Fuck you, Solas."

"An entire millennia of worship and pantheon of gods revolves around the sole concept of telling one man to fuck off?" Thom said. It was hard not to snort, but he was certain that Aster was hoping to deflect with levity. "This, I've got to hear."

"What do you want to know?" Aster asked. She was awake now, and kicked the blankets off as she swung her legs over the side of their bed. "We dedicate all our crafts to June, for it is he who taught the People to bend the branches of the trees to make our bows."

Thom stared down the back of her head as she walked over to the vanity and wash basin. "If I had wanted a recitation I would have picked up a book by Genetivi."

"What do you want?" She splashed her face with water and locked eyes with her reflection as she dried off. She scrubbed her vallaslin with a towel as if daring the water to rinse it away.

"I want..." for her to have peace of mind. Whenever Thom had nightmares, they were nonsense about fighting tourneys without pants. They lacked the fierce, lucidity of Aster's recurrent stolen identity. "I want to know what June means to you. Why did Aster Lavellan choose to put June on her face? What does he mean to you?"

"Istimaethorial, my Keeper, deemed me worthy of June," she muttered. She looked down and in the reflection, he could see her gaze trail from her face to the stump at her left elbow.

"Is that an honor?" He asked.

She shrugged. "Our vallaslin are picked based on our person. Our interests, our strengths, ideals we embody and embrace. Gaining our vallaslin itself is an honor regardless of which god."

"I've never seen you bend wood," Thom said. "Were you skilled at it?"

"No." Aster shook her head. "Not in the traditional sense, no. Istimaethorial said June was a builder, he created things. The People were wandering, hungry, cold, before June and Sylaise found them. He gave the People a foundation to grow on. He crafted them into something more than scavengers."

He nodded. "And you've built up so many yourself."

"Yes." She laughed, then. "I was supposed to create the foundation for the future generation of my people and instead, I've built up a vast pile of shit, good on me."

"You were the Inquisition," he said.

"A thing so corrupt, that the only fix was dissolution."

"You defeated the bloody Elder One."

"With you. And an Anchor I had no right to possess."

"You saved me."

"You saved yourself." There was no force behind her words. He would have welcomed petulance over that numbing exhaustion. Her eyes were locked on her stump. Whatever strange magics that had been used hadn't left a scar; just nothing where Aster's forearm should have been.

"I was a wretch who willingly placed the hangman's noose around my neck," he told her. His voice dropped, "If you hadn't intervened, the only peace I would have found would have been in death."

"You give me too much credit," she said. "I intervened on your behalf, because I was weak. There was a hole in the sky and an ancient Magister and I felt powerless to do anything. I didn't care about right or wrong; I cared that when you looked at me I felt stronger, like I had something to fight for. You had my back and I knew that even if I couldn't, you'd be there to finish whatever I'd started."

"You're damn right I would," the words blurted out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He paused a moment, to gauge their reception. Aster had turned away from the vanity mirror and was looking at him directly. She smiled, so Thom continued, "That was rather long winded of you when it would have been easier to just tell me you love me."

Slowly, she returned to him and sat at the foot of their bed. The shapeless cotton of her nightgown exposed a shoulder. "I am unworthy of you, Thom Rainier," Aster said as she edged closer to him.

"My lady, I decide who is worthy of me." He wrapped his arms around her as he pulled her onto his lap.

She nodded and smoothed his mustache down with her fingers. "And?"

"I'm your man if you need furniture moved or an ogre slain," he said. Then, with a chuckle, "Although, given the hour, I'd prefer you aim me at furniture."

Aster glanced over her shoulder and frowned. "You have a point. We could stand some redecorating."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah." She leaned forward and nipped his bottom lip. "I don't believe we've moved this bed in some time."

"Ah." Realization was flavored with salt sweat and morning breath. He shifted her from his lap to her back."Allow me to correct that grievous error, my lady." Smooth, warm limbs and tangles of brown hair. The day was too young for new problems to weigh on them, just giggles and sighs. The morning was cold; their bed was warm.


End file.
